Logos Pathos Ethos, June 2018

Dear speech-fans and -friends,

Data has been all over the news this past month. Little surprise it ranks high in this selection of the best speeches and quotes to highlight its importance (Andrus Ansip), denounce abuse (Guy Verhofstadt), or restore hope in the future (Carlos Moedas).

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Best wishes,

Great speeches,

Isabelle

One word to remember

Today, we are here to discuss technologies that will change our world. For this, there is just one word to remember: data.

You have to ask yourself how you will be remembered : as one of the three big internet giants, together with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who have enriched our world and our societies ? Or on the other hand, in fact as a genius who created a digital monster that is destroying our democracies and societies ?

Emmanuel, today’s date, 10 May, serves as a warning to us. It was on this day in 1933 that National Socialists in Berlin and other German university cities burned books by numerous authors whom they couldn't abide, including works by Heinrich Heine, Sigmund Freud, Heinrich and Thomas Mann, Karl Marx and Kurt Tucholsky. Today, 85 years or an entire human life later, we must recall that liberal values are a fragile commodity that we must continue to protect and defend.

60 years ago, visionary statesmen (the Founding fathers, Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman...) decided to set the first stones of a project of reconciliation, peace and prosperity. This required courage, optimism and faith.

Later, building on the ruins of the Berlin wall, the generation led by Helmut Kohl, François Mitterrand and Jacques Delors decided to forge a strong alliance. They laid the groundwork for the euro area, opened up the Schengen area, with tangible progress for our fellow citizens. This required courage, optimism and faith.

Our political generation and our citizens’ generation now hold the future of the European dream in their hands. After the founding fathers, after the generation of builders, it is up to us to take on our common destiny. It is up to us to give a new impetus, an impulse. It is up to us now to make this promise work. This ideal is based on intangible values that we cherish: the dignity of every human being, their liberties and their responsibility.